king derelict

In spite of getting a good test result from the levelling technique mentioned earlier it took a stunning 23 attempts to get a print to establish on the bed. My new found knowledge from the leveling exercise did allow me to understand that the front right corner was not perfectly level and was resulting in the print lifting or the nozzle ploughing the print. The movement of the adjusting screw from too much gap to too little seems to be less than 1/4 turn of the screw. So each attempt was made with the front right screw being tweaked a small amount and the print started. again and the initial layers observed to see how they are laying down. I suspect that these hull prints which use the full scope of the bed are much more sensitive to leveling issues than a small print in the centre of the bed. I thought I had a good print initiated but returning after an hour I found the front right part had lifted from the bed and been moved by teh nozzle and a distorted print was resulting. At 1am I managed to get a clean looking start to the print and it is now in progress with 5 hours still to run. It will be interesting to see if I can go straight into another hull print without having to go through the levelling voodoo first. I had hoped the stronger springs would remove that need but we shall see sometime tomorrow

Thanks Yves That's close to what I'm using although I have the bed at 65C. I haven't tried a deck piece yet. I'm trying to tough it out with the hull sections. 😄 Alan

From my limited experience the thin even coats of paint that don't hide the details will impress you and really make your work look good. I need to learn to shade and free hand areas like the masters but even at my level of ability I get results I couldn't emulate any other way. Alan

Not a lot to report - guns and more guns. I finished adding the brass barrels to the 105mm guns. The all plastic 37mm guns were fiddly and the barrels are very delicate. Cleaning the sprue off was a bit nerve-wracking. No spares for this calibre. I have one more set of brass barrels to install in the individual 150 mm turrets and then the paint shop awaits. I see Mt Stubby Fingers accidently moved one of the 105 mm barrels. These photos are great for catching that sort of stuff Thanks for visiting Alan

Thanks Yves Unfortunately the euphoria didn't last. I'm on my sixth attempt to print hull section three. All attempts without a brim wouldn't stick and although the Creality slicer allowed a skirt the skirt was actually off the print bed so it created its own tangle of filament. I'm on my second attempt with a narrow brim. The first attempt somehow picked up the brim and folded it across the rest of the print. I'm trying again with the speed dialled down to 60% and so far it looks like it might work. I ran the test print between attempts and it is still good. It is all a bit confusing. I went back to the Cura slicer. It seems very similar to the Creality version but it seems to be better about not allowing print off the edge of teh bed. I also notice that the prints are not centered on the bed but biased to the left. I'm not sure that is normal but if there are any hull sections wider than section 3 I think it might be an embarrassment. Thanks for the usage figures. I'll have to include my spaghetti balls and factor up a little. Alan

Great news. I'm sure you will make some great models with it once you become familiar with it. Alan

There are a wealth of videos out there some, of course, better than others. I watched one in my early days which recommended that you dilute your stock paint in the bottles. I have read subsequently that will ruin the paint quickly. I have also seen it stated that Hoppes (gun oil) should be used as part of cleaning the airbrush. I think the experts here are the source of quality advice. Alan

Hull section 2 with a narrow brim successfully completed printing last night. There are a few fuzzy bits on the weld lines but I think they will sand off without too much trouble, I turned the nozzle temperature down from 210 to 200 for the last half of the print and that seemed to clean up the print and as it did nothing for the bed adhesion I will revert to 200 in the future. Its been an interesting day for tinkering with the machine. The new springs arrived this afternoon and are both stiffer and better made with machined ends that hopefully will not move around during use and adjustment. It was a quick job to fit them. The new ones are the golden one on the right And installed There is a much better resistance to the levelling wheels now and it feels as if a lot of play has been removed. I watched a YouTube video with what looks like a very rational approach to levelling. I hope its acceptable to post it. After setting the nozzle gap with paper as seems common the author provides a test piece to print and then adjustments are made relative to the test piece results rather than the paper gap setting. The test piece showed a problem with the front left corner having too large a gap and a minor one at front and right. These have been the problem areas throughout with bed adhesion so it was interesting to see a potential explanation. I made very small changes to teh front wheels and the third print was successful. Tomorrow I will find out if this translates into an easier time with hull section #3 but for now I'm quite excited to feel I maight have progressed a little. Thanks for looking Alan

Thank Yves I hope this log might compliment yours and also present some of the bumps in the road that I found and you missed. I'm beginning to think the levelling springs are an area where there is variation between machines. Even with all the initial problems I am grateful that you recommended the Ender 3 v2. In spite of the grumbles both my colleagues are excited by what can be done with a machine at that price point. Alan

So the only assembling that got done at the weekend was putting together a treadmill for a friend who doesn't like walking in the Florida summer. Back with Geisenau I thought I would knock out the remaining brass barrels and start painting. I hadn't realized how many barrels there are to install and how small they are. I did think I might just stay with the plastic barrels because they look quite nice nut when you put the brass barrels next to them they look a bit clumsy. These are the 105 mm guns I believe And the 10 In the end I managed to do half the 105mm and about the same for the 150 mm guns. I think there is another package of barrels lurking in the box still to be used. I did complete the catapult PE and mounted it along with a few other miscellaneous parts. The pile of parts is lowering a bit and I'm looking forward to getting some primer in place. Its slow because I'm generally having to evaluate whether I can build up an assebly or find I've complicated my life when it comes round to fitting the wooden decks. Thanks for looking in Alan

I'm a novice at airbrushing so I'm happy to be contradicted here. I use Vallejo acrylic thinner and it seems to work well with the Tamiya and AK acrylics I use. It is low odour too. I learnt that keeping the nozzle nice and clean is a big contribution to a decent paint session. I think you can use window cleaner or Chlorox cleaner too instead of the proprietary stuff. I haven't got brave enough to try that yet. I'm getting results that I am happy with, certainly much better than the brush but I still have a lot of learning to do. Alan

This is starting to look very good, well it always did really but now its really taking on some life. It gives me a real goal to aim at. Alan

Thanks Yves In another interesting twist I couldn't get the Creality Slicer 4.2 to open. It apparently downloaded okay from the flash drive but trying to open it just brought up the opening page as you show and got as far as "installing plug ins" and then it just disappeared. I'm beginning to feel a bit victimised by all this 😄 I did download the Slicer 4.8.2 from the Creality website and that opened okay. Curiously it gives error messages too for hull sections two and three but it does allow a skirt to be placed around the print. All very curious Thanks so much for your help Alan

I think you will be fine. With 1/700 scale its not like you are hosing the place down with paint even with a big beast like the Hood. Small areas to paint and short paint sessions. I seem to spend as much time cleaning the airbrush as painting with it 😄 Alan

Thanks Craig. I bought the Creality pad and it should be a direct fit to the heating plate. The filament feed is a concern on the long jobs when you canine watching full time Alan

I made a spray booth from foam boards from the dollar store and duct tape along with a desk fan to blow the fumes out into the garage. Alan

Thanks for the advice Craig The treated glass that comes with the V2 has a smooth side so I am thinking of flipping it and trying it. Who knows I may have a sticking problem. I took your advice and bought the magnetic pad you suggested. Many Thanks. I would really like to get the reliability of printing improved. Its spoiling the fun at the moment. Thanks again Alan

Hi Mark Its set by screws tensioned by springs, one at each corner. The springs feel quite weak and there is quite a lot of backlash so screw a quarter turn to close the gap and it takes nearly a turn to get back to where you were. This may be the quality variation I mentioned. Researching on line suggests this can be a problem area for levelling so I have sent off for a set of springs with a higher stiffness. That supposedly improves repeatability and seems reasonable to me so I made the $6 investment. Thanks Alan

Hi everyone I have had a log term interest in the Flower Class corvettes; ever since first reading the Cruel Sea as a teenager. I have also had a growing interest in 3D printers. Seeing Yves log start building a Flower Class corvette using the Creality Ender 3 printer seemed to bring it all together so I ordered a printer, downloaded the Bensworx virtual kit, bought some filament and set off on the adventure seeing myself knocking out flawless parts one after the other. Unfortunately it hasn't quite gone like that. I think I have the printer assembled correctly but getting a print is proving problematical. I got a good test print from the Creality files first shot and then started the hull sections of the corvette. This will probably be a slow log because of the physical time to print each piece and then the time taken trying to work through the failures to get a good result. I hope the log might show the problems of someone perhaps less skilled trying to use a 3D printer to make this model and with luck maybe learn some techniques and produce a model. I have two younger colleagues who both have Creality Ender 3 / Pro printers and their results are also mixed. They are both skilled modeller and artificers, one a precision machinist working on racing motorcycles so they are not completely hammer thumbed but still do not have predictable results with failure to get the print to stick being a frequent problem. It seems that there is a lot to learn. So to the corvette. I made nine attempts to get the first hull section to print without success. In each case the initial layers failed to adhere to the build plate and the result was a mess of string. I tried a variety of increasing base temperatures, higher nozzle temperatures and slower build speed. I level and clean the base plate between attempts and I let the pre heat temperatures have time to soak up the base plate. Eventually I added a brim and with a slow initial speed I was able to get a decent print although it leaves me with the need to cut away the brim carefully to get a clean interface with the next section. Initial attempts to slice the file for hull section 2 wouldn't allow a skirt or a brim to be added; I assume because the size of the print does not have enough space around it to allow the extra area. I made fourteen attempts to print the hull section all resulting in failed bed adhesion. The bed was levelled between attempts and it is a little disturbing that it is necessary to adjust between attempts rather than just check. Somehow the bed drifts out of level after some very limited running and that may be the problem in essence. Each attempt was run with changes to print speed (which seemed to help) down to 20%, nozzle temperature up to 215C (which didn't) and bed temperature up to 70C which may have helped a little. Within three passes the nozzle was dragging a mess of detached plastic around and the print was stopped. I went back to Cura and found there was enough room on the bed to allow a 4cm brim (default 10) and this is creating a print as I write. I started the print with a speed of 30% of file speed and then returned it to 100% after the brim was complete, This seems to be progressing. I think Hull section 3 is a larger section so it may not allow any brim in which case another solution will have to be found. I have some glue sticks ordered that may help I am going to try using shim stock instead of paper for the levelling I am thinking of installing the spare nozzle in case the nozzle is not feeding a consistent filament to the bed I am going to order a new glass plate and more nozzles from Creality I have heard some suggestions of quality variation in the manufacture so the final thought may be to decide how badly I want to complete this project and buy another machine and discard this one as unusable. The changes in level settings after only a few passes of the print doesn't seem to be an indication of consistent quality and I think Yves has noted he hasn't had to change his since initial levelling. Thanks for looking in and I welcome any comments and advice as this (hopefully) progresses. It looks like being an interesting journey Alan Alan

Thank you Yves It is a continuing struggle. After fourteen abortive attempts to print the second hull section I added a small brim (there isn't enough space on the plate for a full one) and that is currently printing. I hope to be able to continue this project although the success rate is making me think of just giving it up. I would like to understand why our results are so different with the same machines and same files. I am thinking of starting my own build log to note the experiences of the "less gifted" to clear my rubbish from your build log if that is acceptable to everyone. If you have time I would very much welcome your input there because I have a lot to learn. Before I go I have a couple of non machine questions about the files. When I imported the Hull #2 stl file into Cura I got model error messages. Did you get the same thing and just ignore them or fix them somehow? Your photo shows hull section 2 printing with a skirt I think. When I tried to do that it wouldn't slice the model; I assume because there wasn't enough room on the plate for the skirt? How did you do that? Sorry for the detours to your log. I am solidly in awe of your progress. Alan

It all looks great OC. I am so impressed with how the exposed brickwork looks. It looks like the model is made with individual bricks. Reading the updates on this build is one of teh highlights of my day. Alan

Hi Craig Many thanks for your advice. I'm levelling between attempts and trying it both hot and cold. I was initially aiming for a good level of friction between the paper and the nozzle but I was worrying I was too close and was bulldozing the filament off the plate. I have been aiming now for a light rub between the nozzle and paper. I think you are right about the cooling. Maybe the house temperature (76F) is too cold and I should try a print in the garage which is a balmy 85F. I have upped both the nozzle temperature and the bed temperature and dialed the print speed down for the first layers to try to avoid the nozzle dragging the plastic off the plate. A thought just occurred to me - could teh nozzle be partly clogged and the plastic is not extruding thickly enough Thanks again and once again sorry Yves. Alan

Alan I have the opposite problem. The centre is tight when the corners are set. 😄 Alan

Hi Yves Very many thanks for taking the time to respond so fully. I have been a keen follower of your posts so some of your suggestions have already been adopted. 1 - I'm levelling with a sheet of paper that is 0.004 inches thick. Today I used the sheet you recommended (0.0035 inches thick). I level between each attempt both hot and cold to get a light drag on the paper. I may try to use a 0.004 inch piece of shim stock as being less of a variable. 2 - I clean the bed between each attempt with alcohol and let it dry 3 - I actually increased the bed temperature to 65 and I let it soak for ten minutes after reaching preheat because I assume although the sensor may have reached temperature the glass is lagging 4 - I'm using grey Overture filament 5 - -I check the spool drag especially in the initial layers 6 - I stripped and rebuilt the printer using the tips in Vlads video 7 - sticking parts are not a problem 😄 I added a brim to the bow section of the hull and got a successful print. Using a brim on the remaining sections is a problem because of the size of the print. I have just abandoned the ninth attempt to print the second hull section. I am thinking of trying stick glue and a lower bed temperature, buying a new glass bed and nozzles from Creality. Thanks again for your advice and my apologies for hijacking your thread. Its frustrating that your printing at a high success rate out of the box and I'm at about one in ten and dropping. As I said you have the masterful touch. Alan

Yves You are working masterfully on this. I set up my newCreality printer and downloaded the Flower corvette files and so far have failed to print anything. Eight attempts failed to adhere to the bed and either created a ball of spaghetti as the filament detached or quickly deformed the hull section as part of the print moved on the bed. I have gone to using a brim around the part which may give me dimensional issues later but that has stuck to the bed at last but then nine hours into the print the filament snapped; looks like an air bubble in the filament. Attempt number ten is three hours in and we shall see what happens. 😄 Thanks for the inspiration to try this Alan